Postgame: Wild pulls out a North Carolina 'W'

Blog Post by: Michael Russo

November 9, 2013 - 10:34 PM

The Wild enjoyed its first trip to Raleigh in almost four years exactly. A little hoops, a nice dinner and two points.

It wasn’t the prettiest game of the Wild’s season, but the Wild played plenty of pretty games early in the season against L.A., Anaheim, Nashville and Toronto and didn’t grab the full two-point allotment.

So, as they say in the biz, they’ll take it.

3-2 shootout winners against Carolina. The Wild entered 0-3 in shootouts and 0 for 7 in shootout shooters this season. That blemish disappeared tonight when Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu and Jason Pominville scored career shootout goals No. 33, 31 and 19, respectively, to ruin Justin Peters’ night. The kid has given up eight shootout goals in 11 attempts in his career.

Parise said somebody (probably goalie coach Bob Mason) radioed from atop prior to the shootout that Peters bites on the fake. Parise deked and deked until Peters was faked out of his breezers.

The goals came after the Wild killed off a 67-second 4-on-3 disadvantage to end overtime. Boneheaded play by the Hurricanes as they much to the chagrin of their moaning fans working the puck astonishingly for 30 or 35 seconds on the delayed penalty.

“If it were me, I would have thrown it right on net and tried to get a whistle and get a 1:40 4-on-3,” Parise said. “We were all on the bench confused why they would do that.”

In regulation, Pominville scored a breakaway goal after he shrewdly read a blocked shot and took off in the neutral zone. Ryan Suter indeed blocked the shot and sprung Pominville for a breakaway goal, the 200th goal of his career. He now leads the team with 11 and has 7 in his last 7 games. He has 14 goals in his career vs. the Canes.

Josh Harding stopped 27 of 29 shots and was only beaten once in the shootout. He leads the NHL now with a 1.22 goals-against average and .947 save percentage.

Suter only (kidding) logged 35 minutes, 28 seconds. He was a horse. Yeo joked the Wild cut him a break tonight because he played 36:51 in Washington.

Yeo said playing Suter this much is not ideal, that he doesn’t want to play him 35 minutes every game, but if the game is on the ice, “who do you want on the ice? And if he’s not showing he’s tired and still can perform at a high level, when there’s two points hanging there for you, you want him on the ice.”

Marco Scandella was outstanding, assisting on Justin Fontaine’s tying goal in the second. Fontaine now has six goal, tied for third among rookies, and five in his past nine games. He also had a nasty gash around his right ear after the game from being clocked by a Suter clear.

Scandella was just solid as I said and Yeo said he hasn’t seen him play at this level.

In 12 games since he was scratched for three, Scandella is a plus-7 with only one minus-1 game included.

Sloppy game overall. Ice was awful. Carolina pressures well. Matt Dumba had a bunch of turnovers and only played 10 minutes. If Clayton Stoner can play Wednesday, he will likely sit again. But a lot of guys just seemed off tonight. Even Charlie Coyle played one of the poorest games I’ve seen him play.

Kyle Brodziak had a real good game with Fontaine and Matt Cooke. Brodziak had five shots and they were out there a lot against the Staaaaaaaals.

The Wild (10-4-4) has 24 points, tied for the most points in franchise history after 18 games (2006-07, a team I actually thought was better than the 2008 division winner).

Parise’s 33 shootout goals are tied for first in NHL history (9 years) and Koivu’s 31 are tied for fifth (but second-most).

The Nino Niederreiter-Mikael Granlund-Pominville line has been the Wild’s offensive engine during its hot streak. The trio has 10 goals and 22 points in the past seven games.

That’s it for me. Wild is off Sunday, which means no blog unless there’s news. I didn’t see it, but Jason Zucker got a five and game for his second checking to the head penalty of the season. So he could see his second suspension on the horizon.

Rachel is covering for me Monday. I’ll be back with you Tuesday, although I plan a story on Niklas Backstrom in Monday’s paper.